


circumnavigation

by jolt



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25293829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolt/pseuds/jolt
Summary: Watching Iwaizumi like this, Tooru feels like a spectator of his life, not like he’s actually here, trying to be a part of it. It’s bizarre. They never used to need to fill every silence when they revolved around each other like planets in orbit - unequivocal, absolute. This insecurity is like a sudden knife to Tooru’s gut carving out the reality of the matter, which is, ultimately, that he doesn’t know how to be around Iwa-chan anymore.It feels like they’re a rubber band being stretched back back back, pulled taught with a tension that will only resolve itself when it snaps. Tooru doesn’t know what it means for them if they let it snap.Oikawa visits Irvine, California.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 44
Kudos: 197





	circumnavigation

“You sure took your time getting here.”

Startled, Tooru looks up from his phone, grinning when he spots Iwaizumi leaning against a column in the middle of the Arrivals terminal at LAX. “You couldn’t have sent someone better looking to come pick me up? I have a public image to maintain,” he calls out.

Iwaizumi huffs, a sound stuck halfway between dismissal and a laugh. “Keep talking like that and you can find yourself somewhere else to stay this week.” He pushes himself off the column and starts walking in the opposite direction. Tooru skips after him.

“What? You’re not gonna offer to take my luggage?”

Iwaizumi keeps walking, pointing to an overhead sign directing them to the airport shuttle terminal. “Brat,” he admonishes, while extending an open hand. 

The reunion is hardly banal, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as Tooru had been picturing. Two years is a long time to go without being together in person, after being virtually inseparable for eighteen years. Tooru was expecting a breathless rush, like fireworks, or a stampede, or maybe a marching band, but no such feeling overtakes him. It’s reassuring, probably, that they’re still the same as they’ve always been. He hands Iwa-chan his bag and Iwa-chan offers him a small smile.

They take a shuttle to a bus station and then another bus to a school campus and then walk from the school campus to a big apartment complex on a hill. Landscape rolls by through the dust-streaked windows of the bus, revealing tall palm trees and bottle-blue skies like something out of a postcard. _Greetings from L.A.!_ Most of the journey is spent with Iwa-chan naming the different interlocking highways and pointing out interesting monuments, and Tooru trying to remember them all while the exhaustion from his journey starts catching up to him.

By the time they arrive at Iwaizumi’s one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, Tooru’s knee is aching from being bent for so long.

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Iwa-chan says, depositing Tooru’s duffel bag in the living room before shuffling around to flick on a few lights.

“I think when your place is small,” Tooru says, padding down the hallway to peer into the tight galley kitchen, “you’re supposed to just say it’s _cozy_.”

“Eh, maybe,” Iwaizumi concedes, fishing a futon out of his hall closet and rolling it out beside the couch. “You must be hungry?”

Tooru is, but first he needs to shower. He tries his best to luxuriate in the shower, lazily dragging his travel loofa in circles across his limbs in an attempt to scrub off the travel grime. But the water pressure is pretty abysmal, not to mention the water randomly shifts between lukewarm and scalding, leaving him slightly reluctant to fully entrust that shower with his pampering needs. When he emerges, Iwaizumi has ordered noodles from the Vietnamese restaurant across the street, the twin cartons placed on his rickety kitchen table somehow the most inviting meal Tooru’s had in ages. There’s something comfortingly familiar about Iwa-chan taking care of him like this, and Tooru feels ready to pass out before he’s scraped the bottom of his takeout container.

* * *

On Monday, Tooru wakes up at noon. 

It’s been months since he’s been able to recklessly sleep through the morning like this. These days, his mornings are for getting yelled at by an endless roster of people: his mother - whom he can typically only call when he first wakes up, his roomates - all loudly fighting over whose turn it is to cook breakfast and claiming the bathroom before practice, his coach - drilling his jump serve while the trainers air their grievances about his right knee. It feels nice to shirk it all and lounge in the sunny patch of Iwa-chan’s living room where his futon ended up. 

When he reaches over to the coffee table to check his phone, there’s a yellow post-it note stuck to the back. _Had morning classes, see you later_ , it says. In a surge of sentimentality, Tooru considers pocketing the post-it as a memento of his trip, before deciding against it.

After putting his futon away, Tooru tiptoes through the hallway to the kitchen. Another perk of having a week off is not taking orders from nutritionists, no monitoring caloric intake, no dietary restrictions. Tooru doesn’t even have to look very far to satisfy his incredibly pressing desire to rebel entirely against his meal plan - there’s a bag of milk bread on the counter. Tooru hasn’t eaten milk bread in almost a year, the last time being a less-than-fresh batch his mom had included in her last care package. Suddenly starving, Tooru throws open the kitchen cupboards, in search of a plate. Instead, he finds four mugs and several mismatched bowls. 

It’s then he hears a key twisting in the latch at the front door, with Iwa-chan slipping in a moment later.

“Oh, you’re finally up,” he says, tossing his bag on the couch.

“Do you not own any plates?” Tooru demands, in place of _hello_.

“Huh?” Tooru hears soft footsteps, and then suddenly Iwaizumi is standing in the doorway. “Yeah, sure, eat my milk bread,” he intones.

Tooru scoffs. “As if you bought this for yourself.”

“What makes you think I bought it for you?”

“Oh? Is there some mystery person in your life that you’re buying milk bread for? Am I that easily replaceable?”

Iwa-chan smirks, rolling his eyes. “I have a plate. It’s in the dishwasher.”

Tooru swivels, leaning back against the counter as he tears into the bag of milk bread, patience abandoned. “ _A_ plate? Singular?”

“I don’t really need more than one.”

“Do you never have company over? What if you want to cook for a date? ”

Iwaizumi snatches the bread from Tooru’s hand, stealing a bite. “I’m not dating anyone, so it’s not a problem.”

“You’re no fun,” Tooru whines, accepting the milk bread when Iwaizumi hands it back after another unnecessarily large bite.

“Whatever you say.” 

As the conversation reaches its natural end, Tooru feels himself slowly deflate. “So what are we doing today?” he asks, before the silence can settle.

“I dunno,” Iwaizumi answers with a small shrug. “I don’t have class this afternoon, so I could show you around? Show you the school?”

Tooru nearly makes a quip about having chosen not to attend college for a reason, but he doesn’t think it would go over all that well. Instead, he says, “Sounds fun.”

UC Irvine satisfies most of the curiosity Tooru’s always had about American universities. The campus is massive and sprawling, despite feeling entirely self-contained. Iwa-chan leads him down different paths to point out the buildings where he studies, as they pass students who seem completely absorbed in their books or their phones or each other. With the sun beaming overhead, Tooru feels almost like they’re walking through the set of some American TV show. They might be foreign extras, or participants in some B-plot, or maybe the TV show is about Iwa-chan, forging his way through this beautiful university in a language that used to be his worst subject. Maybe, in that case, Tooru is the visiting friend who only appears in one episode. Maybe he’s something more, or maybe Iwa-chan wishes he was something more, but neither of them ever take action and Tooru leaves at the end of the episode, and Iwa-chan goes on to pursue a love interest in Irvine who gets more screen time.

“So Iwa-chan, have you dated anybody since being here?” Tooru asks, cutting Iwaizumi off mid-sentence.

“What? No, I don’t really have time for that right now, you know. Anyway, that’s where I lived last year.”

Iwaizumi’s pointing to a four-storey brick building that looks a lot like the other student housing buildings they’ve passed on their walk. Tooru’s only glimpse of Iwaizumi’s dorm room last year was during shaky video chats, and the occasional photo capturing beige walls and outdated wooden furniture. He remembers Iwa-chan having to leave the room to accept his phone calls a few times, not wanting his roommate to overhear their conversation even though he couldn’t understand Japanese. 

Tooru thinks, in that sense, the experience was probably not dissimilar from Tooru’s own, shacked up as he was with two other rookies from the team in an apartment with a broken elevator. He struggled constantly at first to find his own space, carve out a place for him where he could simply be alone with his thoughts. 

“What made you wanna live alone this year?” he finds himself asking. After a while, Tooru got used to the roommates. He would even tentatively call them his acquaintances, if not quite his friends, and he would never, ever contemplate living alone. If he wants to be alone, he knows now he can go for a jog around the neighborhood, or hang out in that café down the street. If he wants to be lonely, well, he doesn’t need to live by himself for that.

“I dunno. I guess, last year, my roommate was always leaving his shit around.”

“Oh,” Tooru says. 

Iwaizumi continues, “He was from Canada. Nice guy, but messy as hell. I was always trying to keep my side clean.”

“Do you still talk to him?”

“Not really,” Iwaizumi answers. “He’s in a different program so we don’t run in the same circles.”

Tooru changes the subject. “What’s Ushiwaka’s dad like?”

“Generous,” Iwaizumi answers, launching into a story about how Utsui-san spent a whole day showing him around Irvine when he first got there, and how they now have dinner at least once a month.

“I’m not technically able to work under him until I finish my thesis, but he’s like my unofficial mentor. He told me I can go to him for anything. You know how I read his book cover to cover like a hundred times in high school?”

Tooru remembers. Almost overnight, Iwa-chan had learned a whole bunch of medical jargon, and it slipped into his vernacular when he was scolding Tooru about overworking himself. He nods.

“Well, it’s like that, but times a thousand. He knows everything. He doesn’t, like, help me with my assignments or anything, but if I have questions, he always knows the answer.” He pauses. “So what’s your game schedule like?”

Startled by the sudden change in subject, Tooru hesitates before answering. “Usually two official games a week, sometimes three. And then practice five times a week.”

“Is it okay that you’re here?”

Tooru grins, stretching the smile a bit as he pokes Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “A bit too late for that, don’t you think, Iwa-chan?” He shrugs. “It’s only a week, and the coaches don’t expect everyone to keep up the training schedule on vacation.”

“Do you think you’ll make the starting lineup soon?”

“I’m a pinch server for now because the regular setter is actually pretty good,” he replies, hesitating again. “But there’s always a chance, I guess. Do you ever play?”

Tooru doesn’t notice what he’s doing at first until he’s facing a huge mental tally of all the ways his experience and Iwa-chan’s experience have differed. Suddenly, Tooru can feel it acutely - the way they’re both overcompensating for the distance and the time spent apart. Tactlessly throwing inane questions at each other as if that can make up for the lack, then immediately cycling to the next subject without giving anything they say any room to breathe. He himself has never known what to do with a quiet room, to a fault, and at least part of that instinct seems to have rubbed off on Iwaizumi. 

There are times he wishes he could time travel, just so he could go back to his childhood with all the default wisdom he’s accrued and just enjoy it all a little longer. He’d instruct his younger self to stay out late in the forest chasing bugs with Iwa-chan, even if it meant getting scolded by his parents. He’d try to appreciate the wonder he felt the first he saw a volleyball match on TV. He’d savor, for as long as he could, the feeling of having no obligation to be anything but the purest, happiest version of himself. Now, though, he thinks he’d just like to go back to a time when seeing Iwaizumi’s face didn’t immediately turn him into this facsimile of himself who’s a fantastic interrogator but a completely useless friend. 

* * *

Tooru doesn’t lack so much self-awareness to wake up thinking every day is a fresh start, but he’s not opposed to manifesting his goals through sheer intentionality. So he spends half an hour in the bathroom getting ready the next morning, with half the time spent showering in alternating lukewarm and scalding water, and the other half twisting pomade in the tips of his hair while giving himself a silent pep talk in the mirror. 

Today will be easier.

It’s no surprise that his and Iwa-chan’s reunion got off on a rocky start, he thinks. Tooru spent most of his night agonizing over every detail of their day, replaying the stilted conversations in his mind until he eventually drifted to sleep. He vowed that, one way or another, today would be easier. Today, they will be themselves again.

When Tooru emerges from the bathroom, Iwaizumi is sipping coffee at his tiny metal kitchen table. Two plates of startlingly delicious-looking omurice sit in front of him. Tooru sucks in a breath, steeling himself before floating into the kitchen with his most dazzling smile.

“Iwa-chan is so sweet to have made breakfast!” he declares, taking a seat.

“You were in there so long, it’s probably cold by now,” Iwa-chan grumbles in response. “Did you want coffee?”

“No, that’s okay,” Tooru answers, taking a bite of his breakfast. “I try to avoid caffeine.”

“Suit yourself,” Iwa-chan says, tipping the contents of his mug back and exposing the column of his neck. “You like it?” he asks, gesturing to the plate. 

“Almost as good as your mom’s.”

Seemingly pleased, Iwaizumi leans back, lifting his plate to mouth height and scooping his food directly in.

“You’re still disgusting,” Tooru observes, biting the inside of his cheek when Iwaizumi levels him with a bemused expression. “So what are we doing today?”

“I have class.”

“Ah, Iwa-chan, isn’t skipping class just part of the whole college experience?”

“I’m pretty sure _going_ to class is a bigger part of the college experience,” Iwaizumi shoots back wryly.

Iwa-chan continues getting himself ready for class. He wanders into the living room to shove a notebook into his bag, shuffles back into the kitchen to pour the rest of the brewed coffee into a travel mug, hurries into his bedroom to grab a hoodie. Tooru watches him silently, grasping for something to say. Like yesterday, he finds himself coming up short, not sure how to start a conversation that doesn’t just involve a million questions designed to catch Tooru up. Watching Iwaizumi like this, Tooru feels like a spectator of his life, not like he’s actually here, trying to be a part of it. It’s bizarre. They never used to need to fill every silence when they revolved around each other like planets in orbit - unequivocal, absolute. This insecurity is like a sudden knife to Tooru’s gut carving out the reality of the matter, which is that, ultimately, he doesn’t know how to be around Iwa-chan anymore.

It feels like they’re a rubber band being stretched back back back, pulled taught with a tension that will only resolve itself when it snaps. Tooru doesn’t know what it means for them if they let it snap.

* * *

Iwaizumi texts to say he won’t be back until late, so Tooru decides to surprise him by cooking. Food is an act of care, an olive branch, and for how infrequently Tooru ever uses food as a way to usher in forgiveness, he figures Iwaizumi will appreciate the gesture.

He walks to a grocery store three blocks away, and takes his time in the aisles fantasizing about what he could make Iwa-chan to express how much he’d like them to get back to normal. It’s a little frustrating, because Tooru’s grasp of cooking hovers at an indistinct point between _loose_ and _nonexistent_. The lifelong distraction of volleyball always kept him from taking the time to properly learn to cook, and now that he’s in Argentina, his nutritionists have supplied him with a meal plan that involves minimal effort. So he amasses a collection of fresh-looking vegetables that are familiar to him (cabbage, daikon, spring onions) and stashes a box of frozen gyoza in his basket, just in case.

Back at Iwaizumi’s place, Tooru realizes he didn’t actually come up with a plan before shopping, and he has no clue what to make with the few items he picked up. In the meantime, Tooru fills the rice cooker and sets it on while he searches for a recipe on his phone.

Tooru is perched on Iwaizumi’s laminate countertop investigating the top shelves of his cupboard when Iwaizumi comes home.

“Oh good, you’re back,” Tooru says, shifting several boxes of cereal to get a better look at what’s lying around in the back. “Do you have bonito flakes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Well, see, I thought I’d try making dinner,” he explains, pulling out a bottle of rice vinegar and leaping down. He points to the assortment of ingredients he assembled on the counter next to the stove, bottles and containers he recognized from his parents’ pantry, and the vegetables he grabbed from the store earlier. 

“Oh, thanks,” Iwaizumi says, and he flashes a quick smile as he ambles over to join Tooru in the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“A bit of this, a bit of that,” Tooru answers breezily. He picks up the knife he found in Iwaizumi’s top drawer and goes about hacking at the vegetables.

Iwaizumi flinches. “Okay, well at least let me help.” As he’s setting a frying pan over the burner that looks most loved, the rice cooker beeps.

Knife still in hand, Tooru bounds over to it, popping open the lid. When he looks inside, Tooru knows he’s messed up. The grains of rice are plum and glisten with a sticky sheen, but as he drags a wooden spatula through them, they clump and stick together. He frowns.

“Ah, Iwa-chan, I think I messed up.”

“Still can’t cook for shit, huh?” Iwaizumi asks, peering over his shoulder at the rice. 

Tooru splutters. “Your rice cooker is different from mine!” 

“It’s the same ratio of rice to water, loser,” he shoots back, gently knocking his hip against Tooru’s. Tooru feels his face burn. “It’s okay, it’s not the end of the world.”

“I beg to differ, Iwa-chan.” He marches over to the freezer and pulls open the door, retrieving the package of frozen dumplings. “Here, I bought these just in case.”

“Oikawa, it’s fine. Also, I hate to break it to you, but I’m a poor college student. I can’t afford to throw food away just because you ruined the rice.”

“ _I_ _wa-chan_!” Tooru whines. He presses his face in the space between Iwaizumi’s shoulder blades, feeling them shake as Iwaizumi laughs.

They eat their mushy rice and misshapen vegetables and reheated gyoza, washing it all down with watery American beer.

“So what do you usually do at night?”

Iwaizumi shrugs. “I’m taking a full course load, so mostly I study. Talk to my folks, talk to you. It’s not that exciting.”

“Aren’t there college parties every night?”

“Eh, probably? But it’s not like I get invited to them.”

“Iwa-chan is an uncivilized brute, but I find it hard to believe you don’t get invited to _parties_ ,” Tooru says, incredulous.

But Iwaizumi just shakes his head in lazy dismissal. “Thanks for dinner, Shittykawa. I’ve gotta shower.”

He disappears down the hallway, leaving Tooru alone on the couch. He feels sheepish after making that joke, but the idea that Iwa-chan doesn’t get invited to lots and lots of parties just doesn’t compute. Ever since middle school, Iwaizumi has been a guy that unconsciously draws people to him. He’s athletic and trustworthy and kind, and back then, it generated a unique kind of magnetism that people instinctively adore. The thought that Iwa-chan, the most popular guy on the Aoba Jousai VBC, spends most nights alone studying, and not surrounded by rowdy friends, doesn’t align with the image Tooru had of his college experience. It would’ve been different if he’d stayed in Japan, probably. Even if he’d moved away from Miyagi, he would’ve been bound to make friends fast, and build a group of friends who’d always be happy to see him.

Tooru’s mulling over his silent fury at the student body, at the entire city of Irvine, for completely failing his best friend when the bathroom door opens. Tooru feels the slow roll of steam fill the air around him. 

“Hey, do you wanna watch a movie?” Iwaizumi says, padding out into the living room.

“Sure,” Tooru replies noncommittally, still frowning at his beer bottle. Then he stills. 

Iwaizumi stands in front of him, wearing just a towel wrapped tightly around his waist. His chest is flushed, thick torso cutting a dangerous line before disappearing behind the white cotton towel. Tooru’s mouth is suddenly drier than it’s ever been.

“Cool,” Iwaizumi replies, completely unaware of the sudden corrosion of Tooru’s mental faculties. “You wanna pick something?”

“Yeah,” Tooru says dumbly, feeling like a creep for being unable to tear his gaze away from the swell of Iwaizumi’s chest, and Iwaizumi nods before disappearing to his bedroom.

Tooru lets out a breath, his previous train of thought completely derailed. His heart thuds unhelpfully as he sighs into the back of the couch. These are the exact feelings Tooru had sworn himself off of, the ones he promised himself he’d leave behind in Miyagi. The feelings he knew would be disastrous if he let them follow him to Argentina. Back then, he had no choice but to look forward, rather than give in to his pathetic habit of sighing over the past, wondering what might have been. The truth is, it’s too late. He’ll never know. 

He gulps down the rest of his beer like it’s water and tries to calm himself as he shifts his focus to picking a movie.

* * *

“Iwa-chan, I’m bored,” Tooru announces on Wednesday morning, after Iwaizumi returns from his morning lecture. “I’ve been here three days and you haven’t even shown me around.”

“I gave you a tour of campus?” 

“Your school doesn’t count.” Tooru groans. “I can’t believe I came all this way and you’re being so stingy. I wanna see the sights! What’s so special about this place?”

Last night, he managed to stick to his side of the couch during _Pacific Rim_ , even when Iwa-chan suddenly shifted towards the middle sometime during the second act. Especially then. He doesn’t know why, but being in the very spot where that took place not too long ago makes him feel paranoid and restless.

They end up taking a bus to a huge park. By most accounts, it’s a normal public greenspace, with the exception of the giant hot air balloon shaped like an orange, floating on the horizon. 

Tooru immediately fixates on the balloon. “Iwa-chan, _can we_?” he says, voice rushing out of him like a breath.

“The balloon? It’s a tourist trap. And way overpriced.”

“You sound like an old man, Iwa-chan,” Tooru whines. “Come on!” 

When they were younger, there were three surefire ways of getting Iwa-chan to cave in to his plans - bribe him with melon soda, threaten to tell his mother about the time he accidentally shattered her crystal bowl and blamed it on Tooru, or whine in a particularly petulant voice. Tooru never knew if he was annoying Iwaizumi into submission, or if Iwaizumi just had a strong self-preservation instinct, or if he actually enjoyed indulging Tooru even if he always put up a fight about it. 

Regardless, like clockwork, Iwaizumi’s grumpy expression fizzles until all that’s left is a trace of hesitation. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his worn leather wallet and thumbs through his bills of cash. “Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

Tooru flashes his most syrupy smile, reaching out to squeeze Iwa-chan’s bicep as he exaggerates every syllable in “ _Thank you_!”

Tooru wants to charge over to the balloon and leap right in, but Iwa-chan stubbornly maintains a normal pace along the gravel path leading up to the ride. It turns out to be moot, anyway: they discover the gate to the balloon is locked, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone coming to open it anytime soon.

Iwaizumi peers at the sign screwed into the fence and lets out a sigh. “I knew there had to be a reason it was so quiet around here,” he says, kicking a rock in front of him. “Sorry, Shittykawa. We can ride it next time.”

On the way home, Iwa-chan insists on treating him to dinner after the disappointment with the Great Park balloon. They eat burgers under a wide red umbrella at a table outside a restaurant Iwa-chan apparently frequents often.

“I came here with Utsui-san once,” he explains. “Pretty good, right?”

Tooru shoves several fries in his mouth at once, tossing another one at Iwaizumi’s head when he pulls a disgusted face. “So good I’m not gonna tell my nutritionist about it.”

Iwa-chan grins. Tooru feels himself preen under his relaxed gaze. His displays of tired fondness were once extremely rare and precious, and he’d almost never let his guard down long enough for Tooru to catch him at it. But this is something that’s different about him now, Tooru thinks: he’s become someone who’ll open up at least more than he did in high school. 

“I have another idea, if you’re up for it? It’s a bit out of the way, though.”

“Let’s do it.”

The clouds look like curls of lavender against the faded orange sky when the cab drops them off at the beach. The waves tumble against the shore like navy claws, shuddering against the rocks as they’re pulled back by the tide.

Tooru immediately charges to the beach, tugging off his shoes so he can sink his toes in the cool, damp sand. Breathing in the salty mist of air, he feels like he’s four places all at once.

“Do you come here often?” he asks.

Iwaizumi shrugs, plodding along the squishy sand. “I used to come here a lot, but I kind of forget it’s here sometimes.”

Tooru balks. “If I lived here,” he says, spreading his arms as wide as they’ll go, stretching as if he could grab a corner of the planet in each hand, “I’d come here every day.”

“You say that, but if you really lived here, you’d just get used to it eventually. S’what happens.”

“That’s pretty heartless, Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Tooru thinks they’re about to be enveloped by another long silence, when he says, “Guess I just needed you to remind me.” He’s staring out at the waves, watching them crest and melt on the shore, and the reflection of the sunset makes him glow. Tooru wants to bury himself in the sand and never come out.

When they were in the third grade, they had a day trip to the beach. Iwaizumi had been really good at naming sea creatures and finding funny shells in the sand, and it made him popular with the other kids in their class. Tooru became jealous, whether because Iwa-chan was receiving more attention than him or because this meant Iwa-chan was no longer paying attention to him, he doesn’t remember. But, in an ill-thought-out moment of childish rage, he pushed Iwa-chan into the water. He was immediately reprimanded for it, but worse than that, all his classmates kept shooting him wary glances, like he might suddenly shove them into the current. 

He’s not sure if Iwa-chan remembers that day, if it’s a memory that ever crossed his mind while standing on these pillowy shores. There are hundreds of stories like that. Thoughtless acts from childhood, now fossilized. Every single mortifying moment of his life. Iwa-chan was there for every one of them.

“Today was really fun, Iwa-chan,” he says, voice barely audible over the sound of the moon tugging on the ocean’s heels, even as it relentlessly reaches for shore.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi agrees, turning to face him. “I, uh. I’m glad you came. I’m really happy that you’re here.” Then he grins - the rare kind of smile that softens his whole body and makes his eyes crinkle. _He’s handsome_ , Tooru thinks, for the thousandth time since junior high. That will be his downfall, Tooru realizes - that boyish charm that is at once everything he misses about Miyagi and everything he desperately wanted to leave behind. He should’ve known better. After all, he hasn’t been the only one holding on to their friendship all these years. 

Later that night, Tooru thinks about the way he and Iwa-chan held each other on graduation night. Clinging to one another in the measured stillness of Iwaizumi’s bedroom, letting everything that had gone unsaid between them their whole lives burn quietly in the space where their breath mingled. Graduating from Seijou felt like an abrupt end to their childhood, cruel in how the ceremony of it all somehow felt hollow against the underlying thrum of dread. In less than two days, that end was made permanent when they each made their ways to remote and separate corners of the world to forge some kind of identity for themselves outside of their friendship. It didn’t matter that Tooru was going pro in a foreign market, or that Iwaizumi was going to college in America. It didn’t matter that they didn’t know when they’d be seeing each other again. It probably didn’t matter that Iwaizumi had left a pair of volleyball shoes in Tooru’s backyard earlier that week, and that Tooru probably wouldn’t get a chance to return them. That night, the strength of the sadness, piling up like a blockade, choked Tooru up to the point where he knew that once he started crying, he’d never stop. 

He feels as close to that as he’s felt since that night when Iwaizumi sets a glass of cool water on the coffee table beside Tooru’s futon and gives him another small, soft smile before flicking the lights off and retreating to bed.

* * *

The next morning, Tooru hauls his ass out of bed when Iwa-chan wakes up for class and goes for his first run of his vacation. 

He knows he probably can’t give himself any credit for it, since he’s been neglecting exercise since Sunday and - _technically_ \- the trainers did imply they should all try to stay active during the bye week. But whatever. He’s doing it now.

Tooru waits for Iwaizumi to leave before getting dressed because the topic of his knee mercifully hasn’t come up at all since he’s been in California, and he wants to keep it that way.

The brace he’d buried at the bottom of his duffel bag stares up at him mockingly when he reaches for his running shorts. It’s there because he can’t safely endure a single minute of physical activity without it, but Tooru has really started enjoying the freedom of walking around without it lately. He only packed the white brace from high school - not the fancy new one his trainers insisted he wear during practice, with its bulky straps and adjustment mechanisms. Whenever they scold him for forgoing it in favour of his tried and true, he pouts and reminds them that his knee has felt fine for months. They don’t listen. In fact, they scold him harder, in the combination of Spanish and English that Tooru is only starting to pick up. He understands the word _idiot_ , at least.

Anyway, the white one is fine for just a light jog around the neighborhood. Whatever happens at this point is between him and his knee. 

Irvine seems like a very steady town, Tooru decides, as he jogs down tidy street after tidy street. He winds up in a more residential pocket not too far from Iwa-chan’s apartment complex, and gets distracted by the rows of similar-looking houses peeking out at him from closely-cropped lawns to the point that he nearly doesn’t realize when he gets lost.

It’s a very steady town, and Tooru thinks that probably suits Iwa-chan, who has always been steady to a fault. A steady student, a steady friend, a steady partner. Tooru himself doesn’t think he could ever settle here, let alone fit in the way Iwa-chan seems to have done so seamlessly. He chews on that thought as he takes off in the opposite direction, hoping to right his course. He knows he’s not the only one who gets to leave home, that he’s not the only person from his childhood who can change courses while everybody else has to remain exactly as they’ve been forever. Still, it seems pretty remarkable that Iwa-chan, _his_ Iwa-chan, has this whole life in a town Tooru had never heard of until two years ago. 

“I passed the house with the red car ten minutes ago,” he mutters to himself, slowing his pace to read the street sign, as if he was attentive enough to make note of the last ones he passed. He suddenly feels very far from home. Whether the home in mind is Argentina or Japan, he’s not too sure.

* * *

That night, Tooru doesn’t dare attempt to surprise Iwaizumi with cooking again, after Tuesday’s fiasco. Iwaizumi cooks instead, whipping up rice and steamed fish and vegetables with the understated ease that comes with practice, with routine. He serves them in chipped, mismatched bowls, piling the food high and nestling the bowls in the crook of his left arm. With the other hand, he pulls a six-pack out of the fridge, kicking the door shut with his foot before leading the way to the living room.

They flip through channels until they land on one playing an old American movie about a monster and a hero. Dinner tastes just enough like his mother’s cooking that he lets his guard down, as their beers sweat damp rings on Iwaizumi’s coffee table.

Tooru is feeling full from dinner and slightly warm from the beers, so he’s caught utterly off-guard when Iwaizumi leans back against the sofa and asks, casual as anything, “So, do you know when you’re gonna want to go back?”

Tooru pauses. “Back where?”

“Y’know, home.”

 _Home_.

Despite how much it suits him, Iwaizumi never hid the fact that his detour through Irvine was only temporary, a breadcrumb on the trail that would eventually guide him right back home. Sports science opened so many doors for him, but he insisted that the only one that ever mattered to him was the one he’d kept open on his way out of Miyagi. Returning to Japan and working for one of the V-League teams, and eventually working his way up to the National and Olympic teams one day - that was his goal, as far as Tooru knew.

“I haven’t even been playing for two years.”

“Yeah, I know. I just thought you might have some plan to go back home someday.”

Tooru’s time in Argentina isn’t anything like Iwaizumi’s time in California, and the absurdity of Iwaizumi’s expectation that he’s already thought about going back strikes him as borderline insulting. He didn’t move to San Juan for school; he’s there, ostensibly, to play volleyball, and Iwaizumi of all people should be aware that Tooru’s personal threshold for volleyball is bottomless. 

“Well, I don’t.”

Seemingly cowed, Iwaizumi picks up his beer and runs his thumb through the condensation. “Okay.” 

“I don’t know if I’ll _ever_ go back to Japan,” he half-lies, hoping his tone is enough to make Iwaizumi drop it. “Did you ever think of that?” 

It’s been a while since Tooru’s surrendered to the irrational corner of his mind, reminiscent of the younger, meaner version of himself. The version that always successfully found the exact combination of words that would land a devastating blow. He and Iwa-chan didn’t have real fights very often, but each time, Tooru would say such awful things that it was always an embarrassing shock that Iwaizumi still wanted to be friends at the end of it.

“That’s crazy, Oikawa, how could you not know that?”

He knows because two weeks ago, he’d woken up to a news alert on his phone that the roster for the Japanese national men’s volleyball team training camp had been finalized. He uprooted his entire life to play volleyball, but it still wasn’t enough to get Japan to invite him to Olympic tryouts. This was the sport they’d given him, and they didn’t even want it back. He’d decided then that his homeland would have to do a hell of a lot more to earn his return.

“I think I need some air,” Tooru declares, standing abruptly. He crosses the room and tugs open the door to Iwaizumi’s balcony, stepping outside before Iwaizumi can object.

Iwaizumi’s balcony is less of a balcony and more of a narrow fire escape, a single platform connected to a labyrinth of zig-zagging ladders leading to and from safety. Tooru sits with his back pressed to the brick wall, his legs folding in on themselves with nowhere else to go, feet too wide to stick through the metal bars of the railing. He rests his cheek against his knees. There are lights shining up from the street below, and a siren wailing in the distance, and if Tooru closed his eyes, he’d swear he was back in San Juan. For half a second, he wishes he were.

The truth is, Tooru doesn’t honestly know how he could go back to Miyagi now. He sometimes thinks facing it again would just be excruciating. What? He’d just turn up and suddenly start roaming the tree-lined streets that don’t belong to him anymore? Pop into the Aoba Jousai gymnasium to observe a team he doesn’t recognize? Sit and take stock of every single place that conjured unpleasant memories of growing up with more ambition than talent? Point to the crack in the sidewalk in front of the Sendai Gymnasium and say, _hey, that’s the place I’d hoped the ground would split open and swallow me up_?

The truth is, sometimes Tooru doesn’t remember a single fucking thing about his life before San Juan. Like he only had room to take one memory with him across the Pacific, and that was that every muscle in his body was forged by volleyball. 

The team did an ice breaker exercise after Tooru and several other new players joined. Share your name and one interesting fact about yourself. Tooru used to adore ice breakers, because he loved talking about himself, and relished the opportunity to reinvent himself in front of a group of strangers. When he became the Seijou captain, he delighted in watching his underclassmen blush their way through the activity, embarrassed by the concept of trying to distill their entire existence into one fact that others may or may not deem interesting. Iwa-chan used to say _You’re the only person who even likes these_ , and Tooru used to say, _Too bad_. 

Twenty-three grown men sitting in a circle on the linoleum floor of a gymnasium in San Juan, breaking the ice in order of jersey number. Most of the older players clearly had their answers already lined up. Ramirez was born with an extra toe. Andrews could curl his tongue in the shape of a _W_ . Cabrera had visited five continents before the age of ten. And so on. When they got to number twenty, Tooru, whose English was better than his Spanish, answered _I’m Tooru Oikawa and I’m from Japan_.

Tooru’s lived so long with the philosophy that the only way is forward, and the only way forward is _through_. Early in junior high, it became clear that what he lacked in natural talent could be compensated for with hours of extra practice, until the sound of shoes flitting over the court to line up a jump serve or the smack of a spike hitting the floor became a thrum as deep in him as his own heartbeat. His insecurities could be meticulously plucked at and cultivated, and adjusted for, until they yielded something strong, something powerful. Something that could charge headfirst into the sun. The Seijou men’s volleyball team could be rebuilt year after year to varying degrees of success. Likewise, Tooru could continue to reinvent himself until he resembled something he deemed worthy. He wanted to quit once in his life. But quitting, too, wasn’t about looking back remorsefully, and trying to pick apart all his past failures. It was about cutting his losses. When he thinks about it, he prides himself most on having turned himself into a capable person, into someone who can skip across the globe to pursue a dream and come out the other side intact. 

But then, of course, Tooru doesn’t have volleyball without Japan. Tooru also doesn’t have volleyball without Iwaizumi. He’s starting to wonder if the things that were special about him - as a person, as a volleyball player, as a setter - are all things that tie him to Japan, to Miyagi, to a boy who’s been there for all his embarrassing moments. And if that’s true, Tooru thinks helplessly, then why wasn’t he good enough to stay?

Tooru’s suddenly startled by the sound of the door opening behind him. Iwa-chan stands on the threshold of the balcony, gaze set on some faraway point in the distance. 

“I, uh, I’m sorry. About what I said earlier.” He clears his throat. “I guess I assumed you would want to go back one day, but if you don’t… that’s okay.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tooru mutters in response. “I never said anything.”

“Yeah, but I feel like this is something I shoulda known. I guess… I guess I’m just realizing there are things about your life that I don’t know, and I don’t like it.”

“You still know me pretty well,” Tooru says into his kneecaps. 

“Maybe,” Iwaizumi replies, stepping outside. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve known everything about you.”

Without lifting his head, Tooru reaches out and clutches at Iwaizumi’s calf. The balcony is so narrow that he doesn’t have to reach very far to make contact.

After a moment, Iwaizumi places his hand over the one Tooru’s got on his calf and says, “C’mon, let me show you something.”

With the limited space, Iwaizumi barely manages to squeeze past Tooru as he heads straight for the ladder on the other end of the balcony and starts climbing. Tooru stands and heaves himself up the sun-warmed metal rungs of the ladder, following Iwa-chan until they reach the roof.

“It’s dusty as hell up here,” Iwaizumi warns, offering his hand to pull Tooru out of the caged fire escape. 

“Are we even allowed up here?” Tooru asks, as he spots a sign that reads _LOITERING ON THE ROOF IS FORBIDDEN_.

“’Course we are,” Iwaizumi answers, and then he follows Tooru’s sightline. “Ignore that.”

For a roof people technically aren’t allowed on, there are traces of life everywhere. A few beach chairs are stationed in one corner, and a handful of empty beer cans litter the surface here and there, cigarette butts are scattered at their feet.

It’s colder up here, too; with the wind uninhibited by brick walls, it’s free to sweep across the bare skin of his arms, through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, sing through his hair. Tooru brings his hands up to rub his arms, thinking idly that if Iwa-chan was wearing a sweater, he’d give it to Tooru right now. 

Tooru follows as Iwaizumi walks over to the edge of the roof and folds his arms over the railing. He rests his chin on his forearms, and the movement pushes his lips into a pout. “Remember the summer my parents got me a telescope?”

Tooru snorts. They were ten and nine-and-eleven-months. Tooru, deep in the belly of his alien phase, claimed the gift had been bestowed upon the wrong one of them. Not that it mattered, in the end, when they still spent every single night that summer pressed against each other, vying for the eyepiece as if it belonged to them both. Neither of them knew how to properly work it at first, and the view was annoyingly blurry until Iwa-chan rationalized that maybe they ought to read the instruction manual. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You’d always hog it, ’cause you said you knew more about space.”

“I stand by that!”

Iwaizumi continues, voice so gentled by nostalgia, Tooru forgets to breathe, “All those constellations you made up.” He grins, shaking his head before returning his gaze upwards. “I don’t remember any of them. This is gonna sound stupid, but sometimes I come up here and think about that.”

Tooru pauses. “I think that’s pretty sweet, Iwa-chan,” he says, very quietly.

“It’s fuckin’ cliché, s’what it is.” 

“In a sweet way,” Tooru insists, conjuring enough bravery to nudge Iwa-chan’s bicep with his elbow.

“It’s just lame ’cause you can’t really see any stars here anyway.”

Tooru tips his head up. Iwa-chan is right; he can’t see much. Lights from the city cast a glow on the horizon that extends almost as high as the moon. There are impressions of stars in the inky sky, shallow pinpricks against the swaths of darkness, as if it knew that it couldn’t just be blank; it had to at least pretend to shine. For the spectators’ sake. 

For a while, they just stand there in silence, looking up at the blurry stars as the night air chills around them.

“I know this really isn’t that exciting, but it’s what I’ve got.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“What?”

“You keep downplaying everything, Iwa-chan.”

“I’m not. It’s just the truth. Like yeah, it’s not Miyagi, or whatever, but I mean it when I say it’s not that exciting.” He pauses, shaking his head. “Fuck, Tooru, what you’re doing is so cool,” he blurts suddenly. He cards a hand through his short, spiky hair. “I’m over here doing boring-ass school and you’re playing pro in South America. You’re literally out of my league now.”

“Iwa-chan, please shut up.” Iwaizumi’s head snaps up, and he’s frowning just a little around the edges. Tooru sighs. “Don’t ever make me repeat this, but I think what you’re doing is pretty amazing too.” He gestures out in front of him, waving his arms around as though he could sweep up the entire city beneath them and deposit it in the palm of Iwaizumi’s hand. “You’re working hard towards a goal you’ve had for a long time, and you’re doing it in _America_. Volleyball is still volleyball, no matter what language the players speak.”

“Technically, science is kind of the same - ”

“You get my point! What you’re doing is real, it’s important. You’ll have a job at the end of it, where you’ll get to help lots of people! And probably a very long and successful career.”

Iwa-chan’s brow crumples. “Oikawa, what are you saying?”

The cards he’s been desperately trying to keep close this whole week suddenly tumble out of his grasp. Here it is, he thinks, his whole hand. Tooru slumps. “The men’s national team is having an invitational next month. Exhibition games to determine the Olympic team, that kind of thing.”

When Iwa-chan doesn’t say anything, Tooru bites his lip. “I wasn’t even on the list,” he says finally, letting out a mirthless laugh. It sounds so much worse now that he’s saying it out loud. He’s suddenly so humiliated, he feels dizzy.

Wordlessly, Iwaizumi reaches over and tugs Tooru into his chest, wrapping his arms around him even as Tooru stiffens at the gesture. He has to crouch to fit this tightly in Iwa-chan’s arms, but when he relaxes into the hold, he nudges his face into the juncture between Iwaizumi’s neck and shoulder and lets out a completely pathetic sob. 

It’s the first time they’ve hugged since graduation night. At a certain point, casual, thoughtless touching became as ordinary as breathing, like each other’s bodies were just natural extensions of their own, like it was just another way to express their perfect trust in one another. Hugging was always rare, though. What need did they have for hugs when Iwaizumi got brutish enough to realize that cuffing Tooru on the head was an equal, if not more distracting, way to express his particular brand of care?

Tooru doesn’t know what this means, or what it means that he feels something in himself surrender as he curves his shoulders so he can sink further into his best friend’s embrace. Iwa-chan’s warm breath tickles the side of his neck, and the feeling makes the bottom of Tooru’s stomach drop out.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Iwaizumi says, after they’ve spent several quiet minutes in each other’s arms.

“You can be honest, Iwa-chan. It’s pretty pathetic.”

“Don’t you dare, Shittykawa. You’re incredible. If the national team didn’t see it this time around, then they’re idiots. It doesn’t mean you won’t get another chance.”

Tooru nods. He’d forgotten what it was like to have his talent affirmed by Iwa-chan, and is startled by how much it steadies his palpitating heart.

“Also, you don’t have to want to go back yet,” Iwaizumi continues, muttering into his shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like what you’re doing now is just something you have to get out of your system, y’know?”

“You’re being awfully sensitive right now, Iwa-chan. Did you hit your head or something?”

“Brat,” Iwaizumi snarls, pulling back so he can reach over to cuff Tooru on the head. “Suddenly I’m not allowed to be nice to you? I care about you, dumbass.”

Tooru smiles indulgently. “It’s hard to believe you when you’re always insulting me,” he sing-songs. 

Tooru can’t be sure, with the sky as dark as it is, light bouncing off the sidewalks below creating looming shadows, but he could almost swear Iwaizumi blushes. “Idiot,” he mutters. “Somebody has to keep your ego in check. I can’t imagine what a nightmare you’ve been to your new teammates.”

“They love me for who I am!” Tooru protests. “Unlike _some people_.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Iwaizumi says through a grin.

Tooru stretched the truth about his teammates a little. He gets along with them well enough, but it hardly comes even close to the effortless sense of welcome he felt when he was gliding through the prefectural high school volleyball circuit. It took two weeks after joining CA San Juan for him to be added to a group chat, and another few weeks after that for him to be invited to hang out after practice. He finds now that it doesn’t bother him that much, all things considered.

It’s been so long since he could go to Iwa-chan for absolutely everything, since their shared lives gave Iwaizumi all the context he needed to help with his problems. Iwa-chan’s shoulder has been the best and only to cry on, even if he has to endure a few insults in the process. He _missed_ him, more than he really understands, and, as he’s piecing together, it took its toll on him in innumerable ways. But they’re together now. That has to count for something.

* * *

On his last morning in California, Tooru blinks awake to find Iwaizumi looming over him, mere inches from his face.

“Were you watching me sleep?” he asks blearily, stretching his arms above his head.

Iwaizumi jumps back. “Shut up, what the hell,” he stammers.

“You’ve just been sitting here, _not_ watching me sleep?”

Iwaizumi sets his coffee mug down on the floor and buries his face in his hands. “If I admit I was watching you _a little_ , would you drop it?”

Tooru makes a show of mulling this over, before leaping up and flicking Iwaizumi’s temple. “Nope!” he announces cheerily. “Congrats on being a creep.”

“I was just trying to think of what to do today, since you’re leaving tomorrow and all. That’s it.”

“Don’t you have class?” Tooru asks, taking Iwaizumi’s coffee and stealing a sip.

“It’s your last day. I can skip my lecture for your last day.”

They end up going back to the beach, at Tooru’s insistence. This time prepared to swim, Tooru wades confidently into the rush of the ocean, letting the frigid water lap at his skin until he’s deep enough to recline on his back. When he closes his eyes, he hears nothing but the surge of the current surrounding him, the blood rushing in his ears. 

Tooru floats on his back in low tide until he’s pruny. Iwa-chan stands next to him, waist-deep in the water, face pointed at the sun so intently that Tooru scolds him for inviting premature wrinkles. When they trudge out of the water, limbs dripping as Iwaizumi unzips his backpack and passes him a towel, he thinks about how he read somewhere that some people believe bathing in the ocean is a spiritual experience. When you come out of the water, you’re changed. 

“I can’t believe you own more towels than plates,” he observes, taking the time to dry himself off.

“I can’t believe you’re going to keep bringing that up,” Iwaizumi answers wryly, before taking his wet towel and shoving it in Tooru’s face.

After that, the day passes by in that mix of too fast and achingly slow that’s been a hallmark of this entire trip. Like for every hour that bleeds into the next without warning, the universe slows its pace just long enough for Tooru to appreciate the way Iwa-chan’s eyebrows crinkle when he’s concentrating on cooking.

It hardly takes any time at all for Tooru to pack, even if half the clothes he brought ended up strewn about Iwa-chan’s apartment over the course of the week. It makes sense, though. He didn’t bring much.

They go back up to the roof that night, too, only this time, they bring beer. They station themselves in the abandoned beach chairs, gazing out at the blurry stars while the sound of the traffic floats up steadily from the streets below. 

“I guess I should say thank you,” Tooru muses, after they clink the necks of their bottles. “You’ve been a surprisingly decent host.”

“And you somehow managed not to burn down my building while I was out. Congrats.”

“There’s still time,” Tooru muses, biting down a grin when Iwaizumi laughs.

Before he realizes it, he’s tipping back the last of his beer. The carbonation dances in his gut, warmth of the alcohol spreading to the tips of his toes. He taps the corner of the six-pack with his toe.

“I’m having another one. Do you want one?”

“Sure.”

A week without questions was too good to be true - Tooru should have known better. But his body is utterly unforgiving. As he’s shifting forward in the low beach chair, his right knee chooses that exact moment to shriek in that horrible, bright flash of pain he was starting to think was behind him. It’s enough to jolt him backwards into the beach chair, face twisted up in that ugly expression of agony that’s entirely impossible to hide from Iwaizumi.

“Oikawa, was that your knee?”

“It’s fine,” Tooru says immediately, biting the inside of his cheek to conceal the rest of his grimace. He’s not sure what’s more upsetting - that his knee is giving him grief again or that he let Iwaizumi notice.

“Are your trainers not on you about it?” he asks, kneeling in front of Tooru’s knee with a frown.

“Trust me, they are. But it’s really not that bad anymore. It’s basically back to normal, honestly.”

He can tell Iwa-chan doesn’t buy it. His eyelashes, as usual, are unfairly long, brushing the tops of his cheekbones as he keeps his gaze down. His fingers graze Tooru’s kneecap experimentally, and his touch is gentle - so _gentle_ \- the way it was that night in their first year of high school when Tooru’s patellar tendon got so inflamed that his legs gave out in the middle of attempting a jump serve.

The sound of his limbs colliding with the wooden floors was loud, but the sound of Iwa-chan’s swearing as he rushed over was louder.

“ _Fuck_ , Tooru, what the hell?” Iwaizumi demanded. Tooru knew he was in trouble because Iwa-chan only called him by his first name when he was blindingly angry.

“Just my… right...knee,” Tooru said, grunting through the pain.

Iwaizumi crouched down beside him and carefully touched the inflamed skin of his kneecap, so delicately Tooru barely felt the contact. “You’re swelling like crazy. You have to go to a doctor. Shit, how long has this been a problem?”

“You’re a good friend, Iwa-chan,” Tooru had said, rather than answer the question. 

“Shut up,” Iwa-chan had muttered in response, lifting Tooru’s arm around his shoulders and heaving him up to a semi-standing position, accepting the bulk of his weight without complaint. “You’re trouble, you know? You can’t keep pushing yourself like this.”

“I know, I know.”

“I mean it, Shittykawa. You have to take care of yourself.” He deposited Tooru slowly on the bench and shook his head, before turning around and dashing across the court, rubber soles squeaking against the gymnasium floor.

From the bench, Tooru watched Iwa-chan fret, taking down the nets by himself and jogging around the gym to pick up stray volleyballs and deposit them back in the ball cart. He was supposed to be texting his mom about the incident, and asking her to drive him to the hospital, but all he could do was watch Iwaizumi quietly clean up by himself. When he finished putting the equipment away, he knelt in front of Tooru and started undoing his shoelaces.

“Iwa-chan, I can do this myself - ”

“I’m trying real hard to pretend I’m not inches away from your gross feet right now, so could you please drop it? You have to limit unnecessary movement.”

Tooru chewed his lip, wondering why it felt so strange to have it confirmed that Iwa-chan cared about him this deeply, even though by all means, he already knew it. And suddenly, out of fucking nowhere, Tooru, who earlier that week had been dumped by his third girlfriend of the semester, thought, _This is what it must feel like, to really be in love_.

“Oikawa, you might think it’s better, but these things take time. By most accounts, the body is designed to heal itself,” Iwaizumi says, snapping Tooru back to the present moment. “Sometimes, it just needs a little help.” His fingers absently trail over Tooru’s right knee, like he’s forgotten what he’s doing. 

“Iwa-chan - ” Tooru starts to say, when Iwaizumi looks up, his gaze blazing into Tooru’s with a seriousness that makes Tooru bite his tongue. 

“Just know that when I’m your trainer, you won’t be getting off the hook so easy. Then you’ll be out of excuses to take care of yourself.”

“Iwa-chan…” he says again, and then the meaning of what Iwaizumi just said finally hits him.

 _When I’m your trainer_ -

It never occurred to Tooru that Iwa-chan might have wanted to find a way to keep looking after him. That, possibly, he came all the way here so he could learn how to fix the very knee that propelled Tooru down his path in the first place. Somehow, he’d avoided wondering if he’d had anything to do with Iwaizumi’s decisions. Even now, it seems absurd that he could affect Iwa-chan as much as Iwa-chan affects him, that their nineteen some odd years of shared existence held a real meaning in the world outside of just Tooru’s head. 

He doesn’t know if he could contain all the love he feels, even if he wanted to. He’s way past that point, and he feels it spilling out of him as he lurches forward, just shy of touching Iwa-chan. He looks him right in the eye and gives him three seconds to turn away, before closing the distance between them and sealing his mouth over Iwaizumi’s. 

It feels like molecules fusing together, like fission in the pit of his gut, when Iwaizumi responds by bringing a hand up to cup the side of Tooru’s jaw, cradling it with a tenderness that rips the breath straight out of Tooru’s chest.

It feels like too big a revelation for it to be happening here, on this rooftop in California, in front of the blank sky. It’s almost funny - Tooru once would have imagined that the only stage for such a life-altering event would be exactly this: out in the open, with stars as their witness. And yet, part of Tooru knows that an event this huge can only be for them. In a quiet apartment, in a small bedroom, in Japan, in California, in Argentina - it doesn’t matter.

They stumble back down the fire escape ladder, metal bracketing their bodies as they descend back to Iwaizumi’s narrow balcony. Tooru makes quick work of tossing his beer bottles in the sink, with Iwaizumi following quickly behind him. Their bodies find each other again, almost on instinct, and it’s immediately clear that this is nothing like the kiss they shared on the roof just minutes ago. Iwa-chan kisses with urgency. He balls his fists in the chest of Tooru’s shirt. Tugs him so close their bodies press into each other like he’s trying to fuse them together. Mutters, _love you, oh, god, love you_ in the frantic moments when their lips part.

With locked eyes, Iwaizumi leads him into his bedroom, backing him up against the foot of his bed until Tooru has nowhere else to go but down. His hair is splayed against the pillow, and he briefly wonders what the sight does to Iwaizumi. Too long, Tooru has thought of himself in abstract terms. He is the protagonist of a story that will be heroic one day. He’s fought for every inch, every scrap he’s ever gotten, every service ace, every time he’s been subbed into the lineup. He is, against all odds, a volleyball star. Someone who stared down the impossible path of one not born with genius inside him and chose to create his own greatness, pushing forward through sheer determination. He’s an abstraction, an amalgamation of hardships and lost matches and minor cases of patellar tendinitis.

But when Iwaizumi leans down and murmurs, “ _Tooru_ ,” in a voice so gentle Tooru feels a hairline crack in his heart shiver and spider across his whole chest, Tooru thinks that maybe the realest he’s ever been is whatever version of himself exists when he’s pinned beneath Iwaizumi. Committed, as he has always been, to the deconstruction of Tooru’s many selves, Iwaizumi peeled back the layers until all that was left was a version that he apparently found capable and worthy of this precious kind of love.

Tooru’s chest could collapse, all the bones in his ribcage giving out under the weight of that gaze. He knows what Iwaizumi looks like when he wins and he knows what Iwaizumi looks like when he loses and he knows what Iwaizumi looks like under the harsh lights of the Aoba Jousai gymnasium and what he looks like under the twinkling glow of the brightest stars in Miyagi. He knows what Hajime looks like at eight and what he looks like at eighteen. 

But _this_ \- this is the closest Tooru thinks he’s ever come to seeing Iwaizumi look _reverent_. 

“You know how long I’ve - ?” Iwaizumi starts, cutting his own sentence off as he leans back down to press soft, open-mouth kisses to Tooru’s collarbones, his chest, his torso.

“ _Mmmf_ \- !” Tooru says in response.

When Iwaizumi kisses the inside of Tooru’s right knee, Tooru feels his body open up, forgetting absolutely everything except the sound of his name on Iwaizumi’s lips, and committing to memory the way his best friend’s body burns where it’s pressed against his. In return, Tooru’s love expresses itself entirely without his permission, from the way his hands cradle Iwaizumi’s shoulders, to his quiet admission, breathed into the space between their lips like a prayer, _I love you, too_. The magnitude of what they’re doing is enough to bring a galaxy to its knees, a dazzling crescendo nineteen years in the making.

* * *

“Do you really leave tomorrow?” Iwaizumi asks later, tracing the line of Tooru’s collarbone with an intentionality that makes Tooru’s head swim.

Tooru doesn’t want to think about it. It’s such an impossibly long journey, even if there’s volleyball waiting for him at the end of it. He doesn’t want to think about the taxi ride back to his apartment, or the way he still hasn’t found a decent Japanese restaurant nearby, or the way Coach sometimes has to explain drills twice because he doesn’t always understand the English on the first try. “Yeah. Are you gonna miss me?”

“Idiot,” Iwaizumi murmurs, flinging an arm around Tooru’s waist. Instinctively, Tooru brings his arms up to cradle the gentle crown of Iwaizumi’s head where it rests on his chest. He strokes Iwa-chan’s hair the way he did nearly two years ago. It feels the same, but entirely different. “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s a simple yes or no, Iwa-chan. You’re the college student - ”

“ _Yes_ , you dick. Of course I’m gonna miss you.”

After a moment, Tooru whispers, “I’m gonna miss you too, Iwa-chan,” but he’s too late - in less than a minute, Iwaizumi has drifted off to sleep.

There’s a quietness to Iwa-chan’s bravery. He chose to leave behind everything he’d ever known, not because he felt cornered, but because he was trying to launch himself towards some ideal that was bigger than his discomfort. That’s really what Tooru admires, he thinks. And maybe it’s brave to leave, but it’s also brave to go back. 

Lying awake in Iwa-chan’s bed that night, Tooru can’t understand for the life of him how it’s possible that he should be here, now, after everything. It’s a little like gravity, he figures, breathing through his nose, careful not to make a sound. It’s a thousand small gestures, piled up on top of one another over the years to the point where they become the size of a meteor or a small planet, with its own governing force in the universe. It’s become something that slides along the scale of probability, dictates the logic of those under its gravitational pull. Tooru’s never acting alone, and maybe he hasn’t been for a while; but the sheer vastness of the planet that’s been formed out of the thousand ways Iwaizumi’s been telling him he loves him for years means he often mistook its shadow for just a trick of light.

Iwa-chan slumbers peacefully next to him and Tooru thinks again, with wonder, that this place is Iwa-chan’s. The six hundred square feet of worn flooring and too-thin walls and squeaky pipes and drafty windows. The strip of earth his apartment complex was erected upon, and the road in front that connects to a winding web of roads in the city of Irvine. The university, the park, the trees in the park. The giant orange balloon they’ll ride next time. They all belong to Iwa-chan. For the first time, he thinks that might not be such a scary thing, after all. Tooru’s heart could burst.

Tooru, logically, knows that there must be somewhere in America where the stars glitter unclouded by smog and the night sky feels like it’s at the tip of your nose and you could reach out and steal the moon from its velvet perch if you wanted to. It’s not Irvine, California - that’s for sure. Maybe he’s biased, but Miyagi has the brightest stars he’s ever seen, and now he’s been to three continents before the age of twenty and he can say that with confidence because screw it sometimes confidence is all he has, sometimes confidence is his only companion.

He left a piece of himself in Miyagi. Maybe it’s under a rock in his backyard, or somewhere in the space between their childhood homes, or maybe it’s buried in the crack in the pavement in front of the Sendai Gymnasium. Either way, it’s there waiting for him to retrieve it someday. And he’ll leave a piece of himself in Irvine, California, too. For safekeeping. 

* * *

Iwaizumi accompanies him as far as the shuttle station. They ride the whole way with Tooru’s head tipped on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, even when his neck gets a cramp, the bus rattling them down the sun-baked highways until they reach the airport.

“Are you okay to go from here?” Iwaizumi asks, hands buried in the pockets of his shorts, toeing at the sidewalk.

“Yeah, I should be,” Tooru answers, hesitating. “Hey, uh. I have some time off, around New Year’s. I was thinking about… going home.”

A thought strikes him, then.

Maybe his home is this: accidentally overcooking the rice and Iwaizumi gently chiding him for it before bumping their hips together. The sun-washed walls of Iwaizumi’s tiny apartment on a hill in California. The official Aoba Johsai team photo lying in his wallet, pressed between his Japanese credit card and his Argentinian credit card, crinkled and worn after folding it and unfolding it so many times. A giant orange balloon suspended in the sky. The idea of _going back_. 

It feels like breathing underwater. Inhaling air into your lungs when you’re expecting water, the surprising bubble of laughter in your chest when you thought you were going to cry. They folded the Earth in half and then in half again, and pinched it together at the edges, and even when they’d claimed separate corners for their future, here they were tripping over themselves to lessen the distance. Two country bumpkins from the middle of nowhere.

“Yeah?” Iwa-chan says, lifting an eyebrow. “We get a break for the holidays, too. Going home sounds nice.”

“I guess I’ll see you then.”

“See you then, Oikawa.”

**Author's Note:**

> (I listened to Phoebe Bridger's new album almost exclusively while writing this and I'm pretty sure it shows.)
> 
> This got away from me slightly, but growing up is hard!! And so is moving away and realizing the place you grew up is no longer your home, even when the place you live still doesn't quite feel like home either!!
> 
> Apologies for any liberties I took with the city of Irvine and the state of California as a whole. And, as is typical with anything I write, apologies for any glaring plot holes!
> 
> Anyway, my entire soul belongs to these two.


End file.
